


Creep Up Inside You and Consume You

by bouquetofwhoopsiedaisies



Series: Sheith Monster Month 2019 [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe, Carnival, Dragons, Fluff, Freak Show, Keith is insecure, M/M, Monster Fuckers Sheith Month 2019, Praise Kink, Sphinxes, Supernatural Creatures, Vampires, spooky nsfw sheith month
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-23
Updated: 2019-10-23
Packaged: 2020-12-28 21:49:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21143765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bouquetofwhoopsiedaisies/pseuds/bouquetofwhoopsiedaisies
Summary: Shiro pulled back from the kiss.  “Hey, can you take it off?”  The way he caressed Keith’s face made his meaning clear, but Keith still reached for the hem of his shirt.  Shiro chuckled warmly.  “No, I mean— well, yeah, that too, but… I meant, your glamour.”Keith tensed.  “Why?”Shiro looked confused by the question.  “Because I want to see you.”Keith swallowed hard.  “I’m right here.  You’re looking at me.”“Keith.”  The soft tone, paired with the thumb brushing his cheek, made him want to flinch.  “It’s been almost ten years—”“Thought you said that was a blink of an eye,” Keith grumbled.“—and I’ve still only seen you take your glamour off a few times, during shows,” Shiro bowled over his protest gently, patiently.  “Why don’t you want me to see you?  The real you?”“This is the real me,” Keith told him.  “This is who I want to be.”Shiro looked at him evenly.  “Is it?  Or is it that it hurts less when people see you like this?”





	Creep Up Inside You and Consume You

**Author's Note:**

> Happy birthday to my boy! Here’s a big pile of Keith-loving fluff, served up by Shiro.
> 
> _*Hoards half of the prompts like a dragon and uses them all at once…*_ Don’t judge me.  
This was written for Monster NSFW Sheith month, for days 4 (carnival), day 8 (vampire), tentatively day 12 (shapeshifted sex… I didn’t get to the actual sex, my apologies), day 13 (dragons), day 16 (freak show / mythical circus performers), day 23 (sphinx), and day 27 (costumes). Because I have no self-control. *finger-guns*
> 
> Title comes from “Disturbia” by Rihanna, which always gave me vaguely creepy night circus vibes ever since it came out around the same time I was engrossed in writing Cirque du Freak fanfic as a weird little junior high schooler. (Side note, I found the movie “Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant” on netflix the night before starting to write this (I never knew they made a movie!) and I gotta say, while those books were a key part of my middle school days, _the movie is stupid as fuck and so goddamn funny, oh my lord…_ But that's kind of the aesthetic of this carnival they're in)

Keith was on his way back to his and Shiro’s tent when he heard the bushes shush each other. He stopped walking and regarded the shrubbery with a flat, unimpressed look. Either Allura’s trained mice had gotten loose again, or someone was snooping where they didn’t belong. And Allura’s mice didn’t whisper “_ shut up, it’ll hear you! _” to each other. 

‘_ It _’, he thought with disgust. Just because they marketed themselves as a freak show didn’t mean they weren’t worthy of a decent amount of respect. It just meant they knew how to play the cards they had been dealt to their advantage to draw in the crowds -- crowds who were supposed to skitter back to their nice normal homes at the end of the show like good little humans. 

Before Keith could drag the trespassers out of the bushes by their stupidly-non-pointy ears, Shiro walked over with a smile and a wave. “Hey, Keith.”

“Shiro—” Keith started to tell him, but Shiro gave him the tiniest of head shakes with a glint in his eye that told him he knew exactly who was hiding in those bushes. 

“It’s nearly three AM. You know what that means?” Shiro winked at him, and Keith arched an eyebrow.

“The witching hour?” Perhaps that explained why Shiro had Lance’s showy, fake witch hat perched on his head. 

“The witching hour.” Shiro nodded, and theatrically rubbed his hands together. “And the Blood Moon is full and red… it’s perfect. Now all we need is a couple of mischief-causing humans to cook in the cauldron. Should we go into town to find some?” 

Oh, Keith could see where this was going. He let his glamour slip a little, revealing yellow and violet eyes that seemed to glow faintly, purple scales ringing the edge of his face, fangs, and long, sharp claws. “Why bother going into town? Not when we have some fresh, juicy humans right… _ HERE!_” He lunged at the bushes, parting them with a snarl, while Shiro created an illusion of bright, white-blue light behind him to cast shadows over both of their features. 

The two human kids shrieked and scrambled backwards. While Keith and Shiro laughed uproariously (and a little maniacally, just for fun) at their reactions, the kids tripped over their own feet as they ran away into the night, terrified. “Freaks!” one yelled over his shoulder. 

“Takes one to know one!” Shiro called back, while Keith snorted. Shiro turned back to him, mischief still sparkling in his eyes. “A stern talking-to probably would have been enough, but not nearly as fun.” 

“True.” Keith admitted, pulling his glamour back on. Strangely, some of Shiro’s mirth seemed to fade a little as he did so. Keith couldn’t think of why, though; the glamour made him look like a regular person: twenty-odd years, shoulder-length black hair, and no sign of anything inhuman. 

Keith crossed his arms and looked in the direction the boys had run off, sharp ears picking up the faint sound of panting breaths and frantic footsteps crashing uncaringly through the underbrush. “Don’t remember seeing those two around.” 

“They weren’t. Tried to get into the night show, but I turned them away,” Shiro said. Their carnival had two faces; by day, they hosted rickety rides, rigged games, and oil-drenched fried food to throngs of families like any other carnival, but by night, they offered a more exclusive ticketed experience to watch so-called ‘freaks’ show themselves off onstage to the astonishment of the audience. It wasn’t exactly legal, hence the eighteen-and-up policy (that, and Shiro could instantly memorize thousands of IDs upon checking them, so if anyone ratted them out to the police, they could find them). Shiro plucked Lance’s witch hat off his head and put it on his hand, spinning it idly. “They said they were eighteen but _ ‘forgot their IDs at home’ _.” 

Keith snorted. Those kids had been no older than fourteen. “They should probably try going through puberty before claiming to be any older.” 

“What a coincidence, that’s what Coran old them.” Shiro placed the hat on Keith’s head and pulled him closer by the lapels of his leather jacket. “And now, does my little witch want to join me in my tent for the night?” 

“I thought _ you _were the witch, here,” Keith said, raising an eyebrow at him. 

“Witches aren’t real, and even our resident witch knows it.” Shiro rolled his eyes. 

“Lance is a fraud,” Keith agreed. 

“No, Lance is a sorcerer with a flair for the dramatic.” Shiro reached up to flick the fake spider dangling off the sequin-studded witch hat, its cone sewn into the perfect jaunty curl. “Come on, I should return this to the costumes truck before they notice it’s missing.”

“Allura and Lance are flirting it up over leftover funnel cake,” Keith said, taking his hand. “You could take the whole damn truck and they wouldn’t notice.” 

They wandered back through the camp, passing their coworkers chatting and winding down after the show, or heading back to their own tents, wagons, or trailers for what was left of the night. After stopping by the costume truck (unlocked and completely unsupervised, thanks to the lovey-dovey couple making eyes at each other over by the campfire), they snuck the pilfered hat back into Lance’s costume bag, locked up the truck, and made their way over to Shiro’s tent. It was remarkably spacious inside, with room for a desk, chair, bookshelf, a bed, and a coffin in the corner. The bed was a more recent addition (“recent” meaning “in the last decade or so”) and hadn’t come along until they started dating. 

Keith pulled Shiro down onto the bed and dragged him into a kiss. “Missed you. Missed this,” he sighed into the kiss.

“It’s been half a day,” Shiro chuckled, bemused. 

“Twenty hours,” Keith corrected.

“Keith, you’re immortal; that’s like the blink of an eye to you,” Shiro reminded him.

“S’different, shut up,” Keith kissed him harder so he couldn’t keep laughing at him. When his boyfriend spent the day sleeping, leaving Keith to deal with the day crowd himself, he thought he had the right to be a little disgruntled (then again, the night crowd that Shiro worked with wasn’t any less obnoxious, just in a different way). 

Shiro indulged him for a few minutes, then pulled back from the kiss. “Hey, can you take it off?” The way he caressed Keith’s face made his meaning clear, but Keith still reached for the hem of his shirt. Shiro chuckled warmly. “No, I mean— well, yeah, that too, but… I meant, your glamour.” 

Keith tensed. “Why?” 

Shiro looked confused by the question. “Because I want to see you.” 

Keith swallowed hard. “I’m right here. You’re looking at me.”

“Keith.” The soft tone, paired with the thumb brushing his cheek, made him want to flinch. “It’s been almost ten years—”

“Thought you said that was a blink of an eye,” Keith grumbled.

“—and I’ve still only seen you take your glamour off a few times, during shows,” Shiro bowled over his protest gently, patiently. “Why don’t you want me to see you? The real you?” 

“This _ is _the real me,” Keith told him. “This is who I want to be.” 

Shiro looked at him evenly. “Is it? Or is it that it hurts less when people see you like this?” 

The words sharpened into silver and stabbed themselves right through Keith’s chest. “I—” Keith broke off, rubbing his palms over his face. “Shiro, I know what I look like. It’s an abomination. I’m a _ freak _, Shiro—”

“Isn’t that why we’re all here?” Shiro reminded him. ‘_ Freak _’ was a word they were all well-acquainted with, whether it was hurled at them as an insult or wielded by their own hands as a tool to scrape out a meager living here at the carnival. 

“But at least you _ look _ human,” Keith countered. “Like yeah, Hunk can swallow fire and lift insane amounts of weight, Pidge can grow a beard at will, Allura can see the future, and Romelle can contort her body to fit in a box, but you all _ look _ human. You’re freaks because of what you can _ do _ ; I’m a freak because of what I _ am _.”

“I _ am _ a vampire,” Shiro pointed out. “I’m here because of what I am, too, Keith. A lot of us are. But it’s _ who _ we are, not _ what _we are, that makes us ‘us’.” 

He knew that. Or, had been told that. Sometimes it was still hard to believe. “But you still look human,” he repeated, like it was the last lifeline he had. “I don’t.” 

“Do you really think I care?” Shiro asked him gently. “Keith, I love you. I want to know all of you, every part of you. Everything.” 

Keith swallowed hard. “I never told you about my parents, did I?” 

Shiro tilted his head at the unexpected question. “No, I don’t believe so.” Not many of them talked about their families here; most didn’t have any, or had only painful memories they would rather forget. 

“My dad was a sphinx,” Keith said shortly. “My mom was a dragon. I’m… both, but also neither. Too fucked up to count as either, just a weird hybrid thing.” 

Shiro blinked, clearly taken aback. “Dragon… I didn’t think those existed…”

“Well, people say the same about vampires,” Keith said dryly. 

“True,” Shiro acquiesced. “So is that why you don’t like to take your glamour off? Because you don’t look exactly like a dragon nor a sphinx?” 

Keith nodded once, a sharp, jerky bob of his head. “I’ve got… parts of both. But not enough to look like either. I don’t look like anything.”

“You look like you,” Shiro cupped his cheek and ran his thumb over his skin. Or rather, over his glamour, but Keith could feel the sensation on his own skin underneath, just muted slightly in a way he was far too familiar with. Shiro went on, “and I would still very much like to see you. If you’d allow me the privilege.” 

Keith said nothing, a storm of fear and long-hounded distrust raging inside his chest. Somehow, though, the smooth and steady touch on his cheek was slowly chipping away at the storm inside him. 

Shiro watched him for a long moment. “Would it help if I took mine off, too?” 

Keith’s heart clenched. “You don’t have to do that…” He knew how much Shiro hated it. 

“But I can,” Shiro said. Even as he spoke, the right hand that was cradling Keith’s cheek fell away, dissolving into thin air. All that was left was a stump just below above his bicep, the thick, ropey scars mangling what remained of his arm and disappearing into under the sleeve of his muscle shirt. Keith lifted his eyes to meet Shiro’s, and found they were black as night with red irises, like the Blood Moon hanging in the sky that night. His fangs had lengthened and sharpened past what would pass as oddly sharp for human incisors and became true fangs, and his hair had gone as white as starlight. But he still looked more human than Keith ever would.

“You really don’t have to do that,” Keith said again, softer. “I know how much you hate not having it.” 

Shiro looked down at the mangled stump – an unwanted gift from a group of vampire hunters. He had nearly taken a stake to chest, and the encounter had left him with nightmares (or daymares?) for decades. He had worked with Coran for nearly thirty years in order to extend his glamour abilities to create a fully functioning arm for himself, and was never seen without it, even when he showed his true face in shows. 

Shiro shrugged. “It has been half a century. Its absence is as much a part of me as the arm once was. I can accept that, at least.” He paused, stump twitching like he wanted to reach out with it, then he frowned. “It does make it harder to hold you, though…” he grumbled with more petulance than true anger. 

Keith chuckled and scooted closer, seating himself on Shiro’s lap so his boyfriend could wrap his arm around him. He took a deep, shaky breath. “You really want to see it?” 

“I really do.” Shiro nodded. His tone was solemn, but his eyes were warm and loving. 

Keith rubbed his thumb against his fist – a nervous habit. “Okay,” he said finally, in a quiet voice. 

Shiro smiled and leaned in to kiss him, soft and sweet. “Whenever you’re ready.” 

Keith took another deep breath and closed his eyes. He let a few layers of glamour slip away. It felt like a veil slipping off his head as his hair changed colors, and he knew behind his lids his eyes had changed colors as well. He let a few patches of scales show through on his face, replacing the freckles that hid them. “…All of it?” He asked, voice small.

“Everything,” Shiro said, hand a steady pressure on his hip. “Take it all off, baby.” 

“Would have been easier if you just asked me to strip,” Keith grumbled.

Shiro chuckled. “I mean, I wouldn’t complain if you did that, too.” 

Keith growled in discontent as he let his horns poke through his hair and his ears lengthen just below them, more scales covering his skin. Even without removing his shirt, he felt more naked than he had been in a long time. Slowly, bit by bit, he let every layer of glamour fall away, until all that was left was just him. Violet-indigo hair with a patch of pink at the base of his head, horns (smaller than was respectable for a dragon) poking through on top of his head, fluffy feline ears perched below the horns, sharp canines still hidden behind his lips… his feet grew too long and were the wrong shape for his boots, so he kicked them off with a grumble, revealing thick paws like a lion, and legs that were digitigrade like an animal. The coloration of the fur on his legs grew in odd, mottled patches of lion-tawny like his father, violet like his mother’s skin, and white in places, like even his own skin didn’t know what to do with his genetics. His tail, long and tufted at the end like a lion’s, but prehensile like a dragon’s, was also violet with a magenta tuft, like the hair on his head. He shook out his shoulders and loosened the wings he kept folded at his back; like the tortoiseshell-like mess that was his fur, his wings were also mottled, with dark brown and speckled feathers like those of his father mingled with gleaming iridescent feathers that were such a deep purple they were almost black, except when the light hit them just right. Hidden under his shirt, the fur faded at his waist, much like his father, but where he ought to have looked human from the waist up, his mother’s scales had taken over, glittering shades of violet and indigo and lightening to magenta on his stomach, chest, and the inside of his arms. 

Heart pounding in his chest, Keith opened his eyes – glowing yellow with violet irises – and looked up at Shiro. The vampire was staring at him, black and red eyes wide with shock, but Keith was confused to see a smile on his lips. 

“You’re so beautiful,” Shiro whispered, hand reaching up to cradle his cheek and draw him close for a kiss. Both had to be careful of their fangs (Shiro’s were sharp enough to draw blood, and Keith’s were no less lethal). 

“You don’t have to pretend,” Keith mumbled into the kiss. 

Shiro’s lips went still against his and he pulled back to look Keith in the eyes. The hand on his cheek made sure Keith couldn’t pull away or look down to avoid him. “Keith. You really are beautiful. And I’m going to keep telling you that until you believe it, as many times as it takes.” 

Keith swallowed and looked down, his heart aching at the words. He _ wanted _to believe that he wasn’t hideous and a bizarre freak of nature, but it had been so long since he had seen himself as anything but. He worried his lip with his teeth as he mulled over the words.

Shiro made a soft sound of protest and guided his tooth away from his lip with his thumb, brow furrowing. 

“They’re not hypodermic like yours,” Keith explained quickly. They also weren’t slender like Shiro’s. Compared to the vampire’s elegant fangs, Keith’s felt big and ugly, even though he knew they were powerful and befitting of the lion-like sphinx his father had been.

“That still looks like it hurts,” Shiro leaned in to press a gentle kiss to the little divot pushed into his lip by the fang. His fingers traced over the scales covering his face, thumb brushing over the darker indigo slash of a marking on his right cheek. “So this isn’t a scar?” He asked.

“No, that’s just part of the glamour. Thought it would look cool as a scar,” Keith explained. “My mom has two markings. I just have one.” 

“It’s cute,” Shiro hummed. 

“Cute?” Keith couldn’t help but snort in disbelief. 

“Cute,” Shiro repeated, dropping a kiss to the point where the darker scales met lighter purple. “Like the rest of you.” He let his fingertips trace the mark where it ran along the side of his throat, disappearing under the collar of his shirt. “Is it okay to take this off, too?” He asked, tugging lightly at the collar of his t-shirt. 

Keith almost wanted to laugh; he felt so bare, sitting here without his glamour, that he had completely forgotten he was still wearing his clothes. “Yeah. Yours too?” 

“If you help me,” Shiro looked slightly abashed as he lifted what remained of his right arm. 

“That I can do,” Keith made quick work of his own t-shirt and set to work undoing the clasps running up the front of Shiro’s vest (for a guy who had been turned in the 1680s, _well _before the Victorian era, he certainly liked to play up the steampunk-esque, Victorian vamp look for the shows). Keith busied himself with Shiro’s clothes so he could pretend not to notice the way his boyfriend was drinking in the scales covering his body, the lion fur climbing up his waist, and the row of short dragon spikes growing along his spine. Naturally, though, Shiro wouldn’t let him pretend.

“You’re so gorgeous,” Shiro murmured, voice heavy with awe as he smoothed his hand up Keith’s side, sharp nails lightly tracing over amethyst scales. 

Keith couldn’t help the shiver that raced down his spine. It wasn’t even just the words; every sensation was stronger without his glamour. When Shiro touched him, he was touching _ him _, not the layer of magic Keith constantly shielded himself with. Everything was amplified like this. 

Shiro drew him in closer to kiss him, achingly gentle and soft. “So gorgeous…” he whispered again, like if he said it enough times, Keith might start to believe him.

“Shiro…” Keith wanted to tell him he didn’t have to do that, he didn’t have to say those things. Keith knew what he was, and what he looked like. He was a mess. Shiro didn’t have to keep pretending to be into this. But the words stuck in his throat, and wouldn’t come out when Shiro kept kissing him. 

“I mean it,” Shiro insisted, as if he could hear what Keith was thinking. “I love you, Keith. And I love how you look. I love your scales - they’re so gorgeous. I love your wings - they’re magnificent, and I bet you look breathtaking when you fly. I love your fur and your paws - they’re so soft. I love your fangs, your horns, your claws… how someone can look so strong and deadly and yet so adorable is a mystery, but you’ve got it, baby.” The whole time he spoke, murmuring those words against his lips and skin, his hand trailed over the rest of Keith’s body in tandem with his words.

“At least I’m bipedal,” Keith sighed, falling back on his dry sense of humor to cope with the overwhelmingly warm sensation building in his chest. “My dad had four legs, most sphinxes do. I just look like some fucked up scaley lion-goatman thing.” 

“You look stunning, you mean,” Shiro corrected him with another kiss. “Hey, riddle me this, fair dragon-sphinx: what doesn’t walk in the morning, walks on two legs in the evening, and walks on knees at night?”

Oh for the love of… Keith snorted derisively at the worst excuse for a sphinx’s riddle he had ever heard. “Is it you? Snoozing the day away in your coffin, and walking around when it gets dark?”

“Correct,” Shiro shifted out from under Keith and flashed him a sly grin as he knelt beside the bed. “But you’re forgetting the part where I get on my knees to suck you off. And find out if you’ve been hiding a sexy dragon-sphinx dick from me under your glamour this whole time.” 

Keith let out a surprised burst of laughter, unable to stop himself. “You’re incorrigible…”

“So I’ve been told.” Shiro rubbed his cheek against the soft tawny and indigo tortoiseshell-patterned fur of Keith’s inner leg. “But what else can I do, when my boyfriend looks so enthralling?” 

“You’re the one with the vampiric thrall,” Keith pointed out, but he let his legs fall apart to accommodate Shiro as he kissed his way up his thighs. 

“And yet you’re the one who has captivated me.” Shiro looked up at him with a coy, genuine smile that did funny things to Keith’s heart and made him blush violet under his scales. He tried to hide it under his hands with a groan, but Shiro definitely noticed, based on his warm chuckle. 

“None of that,” Shiro chided gently, reaching up to draw his hands away from his violet-tinged face. “I want to see you, baby. All of you. And I want you to see how beautiful you are. I’ll keep telling you, over and over again, as many times as it takes for you to see yourself the way I see you.” 

A whimper punched its way out of Keith’s throat, and he couldn’t tell if it was from Shiro’s lips seeking out the junction between his legs (even _ more _ sensitive than usual, without the layer of glamour muting the sensations), or if it was in part because of his words. Mostly the words, if he was being honest and clear-headed (which he wouldn’t be until later, thanks to Shiro). It had been so long since someone had looked at him – the _ real _him – like he was desirable, even when he looked like this. It was overwhelming to think that someone could possibly see him and still love him, like Shiro was doing. To hear those words and not immediately dismiss them as lies or mere politeness. He had half a thought, half a worry: would Shiro really stay with him, and tell him as many times as it would take? But a sweep of a tongue over his most sensitive parts pushed that fear out of his head just as it pushed a gasp out of his chest. 

It would take some time, for him to do what Shiro wanted him to do. But if Shiro could believe it, then that was good enough, for now. 

**Author's Note:**

> DELETED SCENE:  
Pidge: "So does that make you a furry or a scaley?"  
Keith: "I will strangle you with your own beard"
> 
> Thank you for reading! Please leave a comment if you enjoyed it, I love to hear from people (^_^) I've also got a [tumblr](https://bouquetofwhoopsiedaisies25.tumblr.com/) here if you wanna follow.
> 
> Also September and October have been exceptionally busy for me, so I apologize that this isn’t really smut. Smut takes me longer to write, whereas fluffy foreplay comes much more easily and quickly to me. If I wanted to get more than one of these spooky sheith month prompts out this month, some are gonna have to not be full-on smut. I can say as of now that this is one of (hopefully) four fics I have in the works for the month, and only one (possibly two?) will have actual smut. That one is very long though, and I'm quite proud of it (or I will be once I finish it!)
> 
> **EDIT** because literally everyone keeps asking about Keith's dick (you filthy-minded heathens...), here ya go: Keith's dick without his human glamour is purple like the rest of him and has a knot that usually hides in a sheath at the base, and under the head are several rows of semi-rigid bumps that are actually under-developed barbs (he's actually very grateful those didn't make it into his hybrid genetic grab-bag). Which parts are from the sphinx side and which parts are from the dragon side, he has never dared to ask his parents about, for obvious reasons.


End file.
